Grannies on Trial For Sitting Down In Front Of Tank During 2007 Rose Festival

Portland's infamous raging/seriously pissed off grannies are on trial this morning for sitting down in front of a tank during last year's rose festival. Here's video of what happened, courtesy of our friend, the independent videographer, Joe Anybody:

VIDEO: Watch as the cop rips the sign out of her hands...

Sara Graham and Bonnie Tinker will both stand trial this morning for disorderly conduct and interfering with a police officer, in room 528 of the County Courthouse.

Tinker and Graham were originally charged with "interfering with a parade." When it was discovered that evidently there is no law against "interfering with a parade" the charges were changed to "disorderly conduct in the second degree," which includes "recklessly creating a risk of public inconvenience, annoyance and alarm by obstructing vehicular traffic on a public way." They are also charged with "interfering with a peace officer."

"A parade is not traffic," says Tinker. "A parade is a form of entertainment and it is wrong to include a tank in the streets of Portland, especially while our country is engaged in a war in which thousands of soldiers and civilians have died."

Graham and Tinker will both testify that their actions were directly tied to freedom of speech. Graham says that after unsuccessfully trying to persuade the Rose Festival not to include a tank, she felt she had no alternative but to protest: "I decided that it was my duty to exercise my constitutional rights of free speech to make a public statement that a tank should not drive through the streets of Portland, that we should not glorify war and the weapons of war, that the consequence of war is injury, death and destruction," she says.

The video shows the two Grannies were in the street a total of not more than 20 seconds before they were forcibly removed and arrested. "We hardly had time to make a statement," said Graham, "much less to block traffic. Everyone who has ever watched the Rose Festival Parade knows that it often stops for minutes at a time. Just think of all the money and lives that would be saved if the war stopped for just 20 seconds."

Tinker and Graham are represented by Stu Sugarman and Thaddeus Betz, members of the National Lawyers Guild.